Sound familiar? We must sound like broken records asking Jay to use a coaster day after day. So to help with the problem I thought he may be more inclined to use one if I made it, you know once he sees how much love and thought has gone into it … and then if all else fails I can just make him feel guilty by telling him how disappointed I am that I made something soooo special that never gets used he he. Either way, it's got to work, right?

Some of you may think this project seems very familiar and you would be right. I made one of these last year for his bedside table but seeing as Santa gave him a computer desk for Christmas I felt he should have one for that too. So this has been my little project over the past couple of days.

How to make these: You can buy a cross stitch coaster kit from most craft stores. I think I paid about $3 at Michaels. Then I used an Excel spreadsheet to make a little design (seeing as I never like the designs that come with them). I thought his initial would look great and make it more personalised and I used thread in the colour scheme of his bedroom – black, blue & silver/grey. The hardest part was figuring out how many stitches would be needed using the silver thread to fill the circle. So my tip today is to use the cardboard base that comes with the coaster kit and trace a circle onto the back side of the cross stitch fabric, then you can count the stitches in each row to make sure you don't do too many, or too few.